Homer Hickam Quotes

Launching a newspaper without a coherent idea of how you're going to promote it, or get it to people who might want to read it, is like launching a boat without a rudder or an engine... or a hull, now that I think about it.

Marketing is a core part of anything you do.

There's probably a way to use that great content and to live under the radar now and then in order to reach a new audience. That's the thinking I'm talking about.

When I'm writing for Esquire, my conscious thought is, I'm not writing for American Scholar.

I think if you are writing something that you are trying to design for someone else to like that is not necessarily you're demographic, it is a much harder road.

I don't think I ever worry too much about what our target audience is, what we should be releasing. I just write naturally and organically and try to write from the heart.

When I started publishing, I got offers to write for big magazines. But I would always say, "Well, it's not that I don't want to write for these big magazines, but you can't edit it."

Study your reader first - your product second. If you understand his reactions, and present those phases of your product that relate to his needs, then you cannot help but write a good letter.

As with all other aspects of fiction, the key to writing good dialogue is honesty.

I don't write. I usually look for material by other people. Sometimes I change things or adapt things but I don't write from scratch. I wish I had that ability.

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language.

I think a mistake a lot of people make is to identify a target audience and then work backwards into creating a product for them.

Unless you have tested the assumptions in your business model first, outside the building, your business plan is just creative writing.

The key to writing for Richard (Pryor) was to just push his buttons and then know when to push the buttons on your cassette recorder. You'd get him started, then surreptitiously start recording when he got inspired and started walking around the room and improvising in character. Then you'd get it all transcribed and take credit for it.

I'm seen as somebody who writes for adults because I'm an older man myself. Some of them find me, and a lot of them don't.

For us, the stuff we know is writing songs, playing shows, and that's what we're trying to concentrate on. Not trying to read about yourselves or looking up things about yourselves on the Internet - it's the key, or you'll go insane!

All romances end in tragedy. One of the key people in a romance becomes a monster sooner or later.

I'm not a reader of young adult fiction for the simple reason that these novelists are writing for adolescents, so they are not writing for me.

You write to suit some sense in yourself and trust that that will resonate with a certain wider readership.

From my vantage point in writing a story, I can't and don't and have no interest in thinking about the level of sophistication of the audience. I can only think about what interests me, and maybe what I would want to see if I were watching the movie. To me, that's the key to writing something that's not pandering.

I do have people in mind when I write. I don't know precisely who they are, however, or how many of them there are.

I was always curious why certain marketing worked and some marketing did not.

Marketing is the art of seeing (and then creating) what might be interesting to more than our friends

I write on the typewriter. I like it because I like the feeling of making something with my hands. I like pressing the key and a letter comes up and is printed on a piece of paper. I can understand that.

Sometimes I write with a particular person in mind. I think it's fair to say that I write for a perceptive reader. You have to get it. If you don't get it the first time you may not understand. If you like repetition, analysis, explanation, you probably won't like my books.